United Kingdom: Catholic Bishops and Christian leaders, “asylum seekers used as a political football”. Disapproving the Safety of Rwanda Bill

“We retain deep misgivings about the Safety of Rwanda Bill, passed in Parliament last night, for the precedent it sets at home and for other countries in how we respond to the most vulnerable. This includes victims of modern slavery and children wrongly assessed as adults, whom we have a duty to protect”. With these words contained in a release, signed even by the most important Christian leaders of the United Kingdom, the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales criticised the legislation that gives the go-ahead to the deportation of thousands of asylum seekers arrived on British coasts. The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, announced that the first flights will be leaving in ten, twelve weeks’ time, even if appeals are expected to be filed with the British courts. “As leaders in Christian churches we wish to express our profound gratitude to those who live out Jesus’s call to feed and clothe the poor, and to welcome the stranger, and we note with sadness and concern the rise in hostility towards those who come to these islands seeking refuge and the way in which the treatment of the refugee and asylum seeker has been used as a political football”. The release has been signed, in addition to the British and Welsh Bishops, by the Anglican Primate Justin Welby, the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, the General Secretary of The Baptist Union Reverend Lynn Green, the United Reformed Church General Assembly Moderator Reverend Tessa Henry-Robinson, and the President of the Methodist Conference Gill Newton.
Valentina Bombelli